Update: Grape & Growler going full tilt Monday

Update: The Grape & The Growler, which I reported on back in January (see last item below), finally is fully opening for business in Latham. The wine bar/beer bar has been selling takeout lunches for a while, but as of Monday it will serve lunch and dinner.

(Originally published 1/2/13.)

ALBANY — We’re barely into the new year and the hospitality scene in Albany County is replete with news.

• As noted in an earlier post, Carmine Sprio has shut down his Carmine’s Brazilian Grill on Sheridan Avenue, with plans to re-open Friday as just plain Carmine’s. That’s a resuscitation of his former Central Avenue Amer-Italian restaurant of that name that he closed in 2009.• And, just before that, the ownership of the Pine Hills building that has been home to Mahar’s Public Bar for more than two decades changed hands and Mahar’s has been shut down. The new owners of the Albany building will revamp it and reopen it as the Madison Pour House.• Plus, today the owners of Tierra Coffee Roasters, located at 1038 Madison Avenue in Albany, announced they have purchased the Ultraviolet Cafe on Delaware Avenue from the
owners of the adjacent Spectrum 8 Theatres who founded it in 2006.

• And, word comes of The Grape & The Growler, a new two-sided project in Latham from Joe Schaefer and Pete Cusato, who vowed to make a comeback after they closed their Savannah’s/The Dublin Underground in downtown Albany in late August. It will contain a wine bar on one side of the structure at 155 Wade Road and a beer pub on the other. The space had been home to the Landing Zone bar that was shut down after a raid in March 2011 for illegal service to minors and other violations. Schaefer and Cusato are leasing the venue.